Hong Kong’s urban story takes center stage in Venice as 'Projecting Future Heritage A Hong Kong Archive' officially opens at the Biennale Architettura 2025.
Launched with an opening ceremony on May 9, and open to the public from May 10 to November 23, 2025, the exhibition celebrates the city’s often-overlooked public infrastructures—composite buildings, estate centres, market complexes, public housing, and more—that have quietly shaped its identity across the decades.
Inside the warehouse spaces, visitors will discover academic research on the future heritage of Hong Kong by opening sets of archival drawers. Photographed by Oliver Yin Law
Curated by Fai Au, Ying Zhou, and Sunnie S.Y. Lau, the exhibition responds to the Biennale’s central theme, 'Intelligens Natural Artificial Collective,' by spotlighting Hong Kong’s 'collective intelligens' through 33 selected projects designed by local architects during the city’s formative postwar decades.
Jointly organised by The Hong Kong Institute of Architects Biennale Foundation (HKIABF) and Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC), with The Hong Kong Institute of Architects (HKIA) as partner, and with funding support sought from the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency (CCIDA), the exhibition captures a critical moment where many of these structures now face redevelopment or erasure.
‘Memory Eggency—The Sonic Life of Urban Memory’ by SOSArchitecture Urban Design Studio invites visitors on a sensory journey through Hong Kong’s auditory and visual landscapes, blending the ephemeral and the visceral into a meditation on cultural identity and urban heritage. Photographed by Oliver Yin Law
Set across two distinct spaces at Campo della Tana in Venice, the exhibition unfolds like an archaeological exploration. Inside the warehouse, visitors engage with measured drawings, scaled models, photographs, artefacts, and archival documents. In the outdoor courtyard, a bamboo scaffold crafted by Hong Kong’s traditional shifu masters evokes the city's enduring circular economy and craftsmanship, symbolically bridging Hong Kong and Venice—two entrepot cities shaped by the delicate balance between the natural and artificial.
The exhibition also features special installations like 'Memory Eggency — The Sonic Life of Urban Memory' by SOSArchitecture Urban Design Studio, offering visitors an immersive sensory journey through Hong Kong’s auditory and visual landscapes.
Through its vivid storytelling and cross-cultural dialogue, Projecting Future Heritage A Hong Kong Archive not only honors Hong Kong’s unsung architecture but also invites the world to reimagine the meaning of future heritage in a globalized era.
[Cover Image via 'Projecting Future Heritage: A Hong Kong Archive’ at Biennale Architettura 2025. Photographed by Oliver Yin Law]
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